Chamber and committees

Yes.

I thank the minister, her officials and Ms Millar for their attendance. We now move into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2023 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received no apologies this morning. Pauline McNeill is running a little late and will join us soon.

Our first item of business today is the continuation of evidence taking on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. As a reminder, we are still at phase 1 of our scrutiny of the bill. Today’s evidence will focus on part 2 of the bill, which is on embedding trauma-informed practice in the justice system.

We are joined by two witnesses with expertise in the area of trauma-informed practice. I welcome Dr Caroline Bruce, the head of the programme for transforming psychological trauma at NHS Education for Scotland, and Professor Thanos Karatzias, who is a professor of mental health at Edinburgh Napier University and a clinical and health psychologist at the Rivers centre for traumatic stress. Welcome to you both.

I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I intend to allow up to 45 minutes for this session. Before we get under way, I will as usual ask members to be succinct in their questions and panel members to be succinct in their responses.

I will begin with a very general open question. I will come to Caroline Bruce first, then Thanos Karatzias. What do we understand by trauma-informed practice and why is it important in the justice sector?

Thank you very much. I will bring in Thanos Karatzias and then ask a couple of supplementary questions.

Yes, please.

I will bring in Pauline McNeill in a moment, but I wonder whether I can come back to John Watt. In the Parole Board submission, you question the categorisation of the board as a “criminal justice agency”. Why is that? How should trauma-informed practice be applied to the Parole Board?

Can you make sure that this is relevant to the provisions of the bill?

Is there anything that you want to add, Chief Superintendent Frew?

Thank you. We move on to questions from Fulton MacGregor.

John Swinney, do you want to come in very quickly?